


Heir of Prospit

by Chokopoppo



Series: Homestavengers [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is ROSE LALONDE. You have just been tackled to the ground by a crazy naked space hobo. What do you do?</p><p>Thor AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Your name is ROSE LALONDE and you just saw a meteor hit the dustbowl two miles out from your research lab. You are basically freaking the fuck out about this. Your coworkers (who consist of your MOM and your friend Jade Harley) are also freaking the fuck out, but less because of the crash and more because you are freaking the fuck out and freaking the fuck out is one of those super contagious things, like bird flu or gossiping.

You shriek at Jade to grab her camera. You shriek at your mom to get the keys. You shriek a little bit to yourself to put a coat on, because hey, it gets cold at night. With a fleece Land’s End jacket and knit hat shoved onto your body, you scramble your ass into the passenger seat of your mother’s car. Jade bounces into the back seat right behind you, and the pedal hits the metal before her door fully shuts. No one buckles their seatbelt – who would? – but there’s a lot of yelling going on, mostly you yelling excited noises and jerking out your battered copy of the Grimoire, flipping to the pages containing sacred days on the calendar.

You are thirty-two years old, and after a series of incredibly vivid and lucid dreams when you were thirteen, you have spent your entire life knowing that the things in the Furthest Ring exist. You went into astronomy, a hard science, to prove that magic exists. You know it does in your heart of hearts, but unless you have evidence, everyone just thinks you’re crazy. So the obvious solution was not to speculate on how they might exist, but to prove conclusively that they must exist.

This is harder than it sounds.

However, the inherent difficulty in finding magic did not deter you, and it never has – after tonight, you are guessing that it never will. You are fairly certain that the thing that just hit the ground like a shooting star is nothing nearly so whimsical, but is in fact a meteor carrying pustules of an unknown origin, such as the one written about by Lovecraft in The Color Out Of Space. If the calendar in the Grimoire is correct – and it always is – such a meteor should have hit the earth during the witching hour of this night. The calendar never specifically states when the witching hour is, but you always took it to be about three A.M. – and the meteor hit at 3:15. You cast your mind back to The Color Out Of Space, and suddenly realize that maybe you should not be so excited for this thing landing near your lab after all. Mental visions of gray death and suffocated wells and terrified animals and beasts of men and women locked in attics flood your mind, and you try to succinctly shove them right back out. The thoughts are not having any of that. They like your mind, thank you very much, and they plan on making a nest here and raising children in it’s rather affordable mortgage rate.

You need some coffee.

Your mother is pushing seventy on the winding, dusty road, and the three of you pile out in under two minutes. That’s the American way. Jade has her camera out and ready to go, and is already snapping pictures of you as you run around the back of the car and pull out three gas masks that you keep in the trunk (because, you know, just in case. I mean, things happen. You are an astronomer). She makes you grin and give a thumbs up with your mother before you can make her put her mask on, and you’re not letting either of them go near the crater without one. You pull your own one on before assisting Jade, who is far less used to this than your mother is. Jade is twenty-three years old, just out of college, and she seems to think that working with you (well known as a nut-job in the scientific community) will get her experience ‘in the field’ – you tried to explain to her that being a scientist isn’t like being a barista, you don’t have to have experience before you get the job, but she ignored you, and what the hell, you have an assistant.

Even with the masks on, you are aware that any radiation will be undeterred by your puny attempts to protect yourself – but if the thing that hit the ground was indeed a meteor like the one Lovecraft predicted, a hazmat suit couldn’t save your body, so you’re not gonna worry about it too much. You bother your mother for the flashlight – thanks – flick it on, and point the light out towards the brand-new crater. You are distracted, however, by the incessant clicking of Jade’s digital camera. You turn to face her.

“Jade, is there any legitimate reason you have taken something like twenty pictures of me in the last minute?” You don’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it does, it just happens.

Jade is unfazed. She removes her eye from the little window and gives you the cheesiest grin you’ve seen on this side of the moon. “Scrapbook-ertunity!”

You sigh and roll your eyes. “You got video on that? It might be more effective.” She shakes her head. You guys really need a camcorder.

Shining the beam of light into the pit once more, you notice that the meteor isn’t really…meteor-shaped. It doesn’t look like anything special, either – more streamlined than you’d thought, but it hit the ground hard enough to cover it in a fine sheen of reddish dust, making it look like any other rock on the bowl. You are disappointed – you always hoped that a space-rock sent from the elder gods would look more…unusual. Or at least like a meteor.

You shimmy your way down the slope of the crater, sending rocks and pebbles cascading around you, shining the light straight down (it’s hard to see with a gas-mask covering your eyes). When you hit the bottom, you motion for Jade to follow, and she just slides down all at once like a snowboarder or something, which makes you feel kind of old and lame. Your mother stays at the top of the crater, holding her phone out to get backup pictures in case this thing kills them young spry ladies, standing in perfect getaway position. This is an agreement you had with her many years ago, when she first started working with you – no matter what the situation, she would be permitted to remain at least ten feet away from any crash site. Just in case. You know. Things happen.

(You are looking for ancient, demonic creatures of timeless origin, after all.)

The closer you get to the rock, though, the more certain you become that it really, really isn’t a rock, and when you reach out and touch it, you realize with a jolt of acute terror that it’s a person. So taken by surprise, you jerk back, drop your flashlight, stumble a few steps backward, trip over your own stupid feet and hit the ground directly on the ass.

Yeah, not your finest hour.

You’re not really worried about your dignity right now, though. You probably will in the future, but for right now, you are realizing that you are bearing witness to some horrible kind of murder. This poor person hit the ground from high above, probably dropped out of a plane or something equally awful. Oh, god, when you touched it the body was warm, what if they just died two minutes ago when they hit the ground?

Jade, apparently unfazed by your loss of composure and terrified spluttering, strides right up to the corpse and pats it, then pulls back and snaps a picture. “Man, this brother needs to wake his ass up.”

“I…bwah…Jade, he’s dead!”

For your spluttered worry and panic, you receive a free ‘gurl, you cray-cray’ look from your assistant. “Come on, Rose. If he was dead, he wouldn’t still be breathing. See?” She pats the body with more enthusiasm, then takes the opportunity to snap another picture of your stunned face. You blink.

“But…he fell from the sky.” You try to puzzle this out. “And…he was going way too fast to have been dropped from a plane, wasn’t he? So he pretty much has to be from space somewhere…” You trail off.

Holy shit, you’ve discovered an alien.

Jade is less startled by this than you are – in fact, she seems incredibly enthused. “Aliens? Sweet! They’re pretty humanoid, that’s unusual. Let’s get a look at this guy’s underbelly, yeah?” She immediately resumes poking and prodding the body, this time calling things like “wake up, mister alien!” and “Hey, we’ll take you to our leader.” You aren’t sure if she’s making fun of you or not – but you know how trajectories work. You can’t get a crater this large with a person dropped from a plane.

You get unsteadily to your feet, and slowly shuffle closer to the alien. Now that you’re looking closely at it, it is breathing – in your defense, you panicked – but you’ve watched enough movies to know that, with aliens, you never know what to expect. “Hey, Jade, be careful. We don’t know if this is a hostile entity or not.” You hold a hand out to her, reaching to touch her on the shoulder. “Take care when looking, okay? If this thing is some kind of murder machine, you’ve got more life in you than I do. I’ll inspect it.” You pat her shoulder reassuringly. “Plus, I’ve got the flashlight.”

Jade sniggers and backs up, and you take the wheel, patting the creature’s back and shoulders. It’s incredibly humanoid, you note, and definitely mammalian, too. It has shreds of things that you could identify as clothing, but in general, it’s pretty naked. In fact, the more you look at this, the surer you are it’s just a hobo who saw the crater and decided to take a nap in it. Your mother calls down to you, asking if she can take off the gas mask, but you say not until you’re totally sure this isn’t toxic. She sighs like a teenager and starts complaining that her nose itches, this is so boooring, what kind of daughter drags her poor sweet mother out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Jade just continues to snap pictures, at first of the alien, but then of you and your mother.

Sometimes you really hate your team.

Suddenly the thing moves. Everyone shuts the hell up immediately, turning to look at its progress as it shifts, brings arms out and around, pushes itself onto it’s knees, and then struggles to it’s feet…

And it turns around and lunges at you. You scream. Jade screams. Your mom screams and runs. The flashlight drops out of your hands and bounces on the hard ground as you throw your arms in front of your face and brace for impact.

The thing hits like a truck.


	2. Chapter 2

Your name is JOHN EGBERT and you hold aloft the Warhammer of Zillyhoo, possibly the most dangerous (and whimsical!) weapon currently held by any man or god. It’s great for holding when making speeches, especially friendleading speeches like the one you’re delivering to your closest bros right now. By closest bros, you mean the Mayor, your brother Jack, the totally awesome renegade guy with the super cool guns, and…the mail lady, who came by to deliver a letter and just kind of got stuck. She seems cool, you guess. She knows when to look inspired.  
Not two hours ago, your coronation ceremony was interrupted by an attack from the horrorterrors of Derse, and you are decidedly pissed about this. Not like, gonna murder everyone and start a war kind of pissed(that’s really more your brother’s thing), but you are definitely not okay with the turn of events. First and foremost, of course, you’re upset because Prospit and Derse have been on really good terms for the past few thousand years or so, but on a secondary and honestly far more personal level, they attacked during your coronation. You were going to become the king of your entire planet and rule over your people with a kind and compassionate hand, like your father always taught you, but no, instead you are stuck as a prince making friendleading speeches to your bros. Your dad is so forgetful, he will take forever to reschedule. Probably years. You don’t want to be a prince that long!

Just as you’re coming to a lull in your monologue, your brother clears his throat loudly and stands, apparently unmoved by your totally inspiring and beautiful language. He begins to speak, and your voice sort of just dies out under his commanding tone.

“Alright, listen. I think we’ve all made a lotta progress today, yeah, but John, you’ve been talkin’ fer like two hours an’ I think it’s time we wrap it up an’ summarize. Shall I?” He doesn’t wait for you to respond. “Derse sent three creatures from the closest a the outer rings to the palace on the day they knew a new king was gonna be coronated. That’s a fuckin’ war crime, first of all. Second, they came for the ring of the Black Queen, a treasure Prospit has prized for thousand of years, presumably because it originated on their planet – however, it was won fairly by, and belongs to, the Prospitian royal family. In the common vernacular, they showed up to kidnap what we have rightfully stolen, an’ they declared war while doin’ it.” He grits his teeth. “We gotta give them hell.”

You have always admired your brother for his commanding personality(and been jealous of his totally sexy accent, which for some reason you never acquired). You inspire people, and he makes sure they know what’s actually going on. The two of you make one hell of a team, you think, although Jack always tells you that that’s stupid and that you’re stupid.

Unfortunately, you disagree with his point, and probably should do something about that! “Jack, although your summary was one hundred percent super correct, I disagree with your final point there. Yeah, Derse dicked around, but we don’t know if those horrorterrors were sent by Dersites! For all we know, they just got super high and decided it was a good idea to try and steal dad’s ring.” You shrug.

Your brother gives you this look that clearly says that he is about to argue with you and, oh man, you aren’t sure you can win against him, when all of a sudden the mayor throws a word in. “Uh, ‘scuse me, sirs, but how is this, hm, how do I say, entirely relevant? I believe we were, er, speaking more on the matter of raising defenses, yes, so that it doesn’t happen again.” The mail lady nods in agreement, but the guy with all the guns and stuff shakes his head.

“No, I’m gonna say Jack is right here. I always say the best defense is a good offense, no offense meant.” He smells like cigar smoke and pure manliness, you notice. You never realized that manliness had a scent before, but it does, and this guy is a prime cologne sample. “If those pricks back on Derse are shittin’ around enough to be sendin’ horrorterrors, god forbid, there ain’t enough defense over all of Skaia to protect us for too long. We gotta get in there, find a weak spot, and rip these fuckers a structurally superfluous new behind so they know never to fuck with us again.”

Woah, the group is pretty split on this thing! Better hop in and wind down before real arguments start and break your group apart over it. “Okay, I guess we can all agree that it’s a very complicated problem. There are a lot of factors involved, right? Personally, I don’t think there’s a straight answer at all. Maybe we’d better take it home, you know, sleep on it.”

“I’m sorry, your highness, but I should have to decline that response,” the mail lady speaks for the first time, “we don’t know when the Dersites plan to attack again, and if we delay action on this, they could break in this very night!”

“But we don’t even know if they WILL attack again,” You reply, already realizing that you will lose this fight.

“But they might,” She snaps, and it’s terrifyingly forceful for a public servant that you can barely make a word dance halfway out your mouth, “and you must make a decision as the prince of Prospit-“ She stops, like she just realized who you were again, and suddenly she starts trembling and looks like she’s going to cry. You insist that it’s quite alright, that you don’t mind, that people yell at you all the time and you don’t really care who’s doing the yelling, but nothing really reassures her until the mayor pats her on the back and compliments her on her spine and nerve, and she seems to calm down.

However, your friends are all now arguing against you, and you’re a friendleader, not a king. You bow to democracy, and concede that, yeah, the horrorterrors are probably coming back. The argument shifts to how you should combat the threat, and sometime during that, you catch Jack’s eye.

He seems kind of smug.

~!~

Once you lost the first argument, everything just sort of went downhill. Your friends lost trust with you, and though you take the more popular stance of defensive defense, your vote seems to make offensive defense appear as the better option. It feels like your friends, though they like you, don’t think your ideas are ever going to be good ideas. Before you could figure out what was happening, the choice was made to attack Derse.

You can’t count all the ways this is a bad idea – for example, they have a much larger army, they have horrorterrors, and they have the ‘agents’ – but no one will listen to you, and you don’t want to lose any more of their respect by opting out of this, if it’ll protect Prospit. Still, you worry all the way to the Bifrost.

The Bifrost is basically this gateway through the mainland of Skaia all the way to Derse, which you explain to the mail-lady(who, unlike the mayor or the gun-guy, has never been on it). It’s a super pretty rainbow bridge that you kind of shoot through, like a letter through the delivery pipes. It can take you to the mainland, both moons, and the five surrounding planets (LOWAS, LOHAC, LOFAF, LOLAR, and LOSAS). The whole process is monitored by the gatekeeper, who can be super difficult to reason with – in fact, talking to the captor of keys (this is what you and Jack called him as kids. It has never been funny) is really the only part of the process that’s difficult in any manner. You steel yourself for his arguments as you approach.

“Hello, Sollux!” You call to him. He ignores you.

“Sir, we need ya to open the Bifrost for us. We need’a get to Derse,” Jack starts, voice slimy as oil, but the gatekeepers whirls around to face you.

“No.” His face is contorted into an angry grimace, eyes obscured behind spectacles, far above everyone’s head. His body was made of wire and pipe cleaners, traditional golden Prospitian robes draped awkwardly over him, and his whole body was twisted in completely inappropriate rage. You step back, along with all your friends, as his four horns crackle with psionic red-and-blue lightning. Three of your four hearts thrum in panic.

Then your brother steps forward. “Why not?”

Sollux stares down at him, almost about to strike him – then collapses in upon himself, as though he can’t be damned to really care. “Eh, who giveth a fuck, go get yourthelveth killed. Thee if I care.”

It occurs to you that your brother is actually terrifyingly good at this. You bet he could make anyone do anything he wanted with enough time. This should worry you, but for some reason, it does not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blah blah something about school taking it out of me alright let's roll.

You are Rose again. You have just been tackled to the ground by a crazy naked space hobo. What do you do?

Punch him in the nose, of course.

You don’t expect your swing to miss, but unfortunately, due to your panic and confusion (as well as the lack of reading glasses that you will never admit you need), you don’t so much break his nose as kind of clip his ear. Desperate, you flail in his grip as he hauls a fist back to make a strike in return, but he’s interrupted by Jade throwing her camera at him, shrieking like a banshee that just dropped a brick on it’s toe. He reels away, releasing you, and for the first time you catch a glimpse of his face, and it’s contorted in fear and pain. Jade, unperturbed by his obvious panic, pulls the camera back by its strap and prepares to hit again. Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out – you don’t call to her to stop, but you can’t scream helplessly –

And then the guy gets tasered.

You and Jade look up simultaneously to see your mother holding the taser out, eyes wet without the gas mask on. She’s breathing hard, like she just sprinted a mile, and retracts the two bobble-things. The alien-dude lies still.

“Mom, you were supposed to run if anything happened!” It occurs to you that she never ran for her own protection, would never have gotten the evidence out if you and Jade had been killed.

She takes a few deep breaths before she shouts back, “You think I’d abandon my daughter?”

Words fail you yet again. That seems to be happening a lot today.

“So…what do we do with him?” Jade asks, breaking you out of your reverie. “I mean, we can’t just…leave him here. Should we take him to the lab or the hospital or something?”

This is a prospect you hadn’t considered. If this guy is a regular crazy human dude, he’s probably pretty badly wounded, or may at least need medical attention. However, on the off chance that he’s an alien, the hospital couldn’t do much, and as well as that, they may catch wind that something is off in his body, and your cover would be pretty thoroughly blown. But the chances of finding an alien that looks so incredibly similar to humans are inconceivably low, so eventually you vote to take him to the hospital. You drive this time, your mother sitting in the back with the taser ready in hand, in case the guy decides to stop being unconscious suddenly.

Spoiler: he doesn’t. You make it all the way to the hospital without another incident, minus Jade freaking out over possibly having killed her camera. You would berate her if she hadn’t done it instinctively to save your life. But she did, so you let it slide, and she figures out that it isn’t super broken, and that the photos, at least, are salvageable.

When you reach the hospital, however, you are hit in the face with another obstacle – you don’t have any idea who this guy is, where he’s from, or even his name. Your mother insists that his name is “Jon Deere or somethin’,” and you have to restrain yourself from telling the nurse that this is 100% not true. The nurse insists that at least one of you remain in the hospital for when this guy wakes up, reminding you that this dude is your problem, but you don’t want to split the group – three brains are better than one – so you grab your notebook and the Grimoire from the car, and the three of you sit around in the waiting room, discussing.

In a night of study and notes and yelling loudly at one another (and then whispering when the secretary shushes you), the three of you miss the next meteor-strike.

Not that you know that, of course.

~!~

Your name is JACK, and you are remembering your childhood.

Your earliest clear memory, though not the earliest one in your arsenal, is of the night your father took you and your brother to see the gallery of legendary weapons. There was the FLORID OCTET, the NEEDLES OF ECHIDNA, et cetera, et cetera – but the one you and John were the most drawn to, at the same time, was the WARHAMMER OF ZILLYHOO. It looked silly and colorful and incredibly whimsical, and being as small a child as you were, you were completely unable to avoid touching it. Your father chuckled good-heartedly and allowed you to thumb over the pink bobble and scratch at the engraved Z on the side, and even let the both of you try to pick it up; you failed completely, as did John, but it was fun regardless. Your father had laughed, gotten down on one knee, and hugged one of you to each of his sides. He told you both that only the true king of Prospit, the true heir, would be able to lift and wield the hammer when he was ready to take the throne. And you and your brother had simply hugged him and taken fistfuls of his shirt and insisted on being carried out, which he had laughingly done.

The day John had returned home dressed in blue rather than gold, long hood flowing in the air he controlled, and lifted the Warhammer easily in one hand, was the day you decided you hated him.

For all of your childhood, John was the favorite. You worked your ass off studying or fighting or stabbing, looking for your father’s approval, and John would sit in the background and laugh heartily whenever you messed up in your attempts, then do it correctly on the first try and get all the head-pats and dad-hugs. Though you were the smarter of the two sons, your father always favored John’s strength. It wasn’t John’s fault, you used to remind yourself, but you despised him for it regardless. You were a scrawny genius in a family that favored brawn over brains, and someone reminded you of it every day.

You’d have daydreams, though. You would dream that you would reach god tier first, that you would study up and find your quest bed and die there and come back and take the hammer up yourself. Dreams of triumph after living a life in a shadow, dreams of kicking your stupid family in the teeth, dreams that they would finally, finally accept you, that they would have to, because you would be the heir, YOU would be the new king.

John had found his quest bed by accident.

By accident.

He did nothing for it, his whole life, just drifted through like a leaf on the breeze, and he became king through laziness and luck, through stupid damn miracles and happy accidents.

And you were ready to kill him for it.

~!~

Jade is the first one to fall asleep.

You honestly can’t blame her – two hours of pouring over a huge tome full of tiny text and hideous illustrations and you’re exhausted too. Your mother is too weak to fight, and you’re fading fast. You write in some notes, jab a finger at the map of Skaia that you hastily scribbled onto a piece of paper an hour and a half ago, and slump against your mother, who slumps back. You sigh dramatically and make a motion to close the Grimoire, but it’s on that freaky diagrams page that you never understood and you get caught up in reading the instructions – nub A in slot B? Mysterious – as you drift off to sleep while the sun comes up.

You dream of the creatures of the furthest ring, old rehashings of the lucid ones you had in childhood. Phlegm and tentacles and screams for help above towers of purple, and your little girl hands helpless to do anything. A kingdom, all yours, all in shambles, all your fault.

When you wake, it is in sweat that you feel you long should’ve outgrown, shaken by your mother. Unlike you and Jade, she made it through the night (This embarrasses you far more than it really should – your mother is fifty-seven. Aren’t old people supposed to need more sleep?), and she woke you when she saw that tense face-twitching of nightmares. You got maybe two hours of rest in there, and spend another quarter of an hour staring numbly at a wall. Subconscious thoughts of indescribable abominations haven’t brought you to tears since you were fifteen, when your dreams stopped feeling real, but they always make you feel sick. Sleep tires you out more often than not.

Before you can get too deep into thought, the nurse from the night previous comes out to see the three of you. She seems deeply distressed.

“You three are with mister Deere, yes?” You nod mutely as your mother shakes Jade awake. “You’d…you’d better come with me. There’s been a problem.”

The three of you trade nervous glances. Well, you and your mother do. As soon as Jade heard the word ‘problem’, her eyes started shining and you’re pretty sure the words she’s mouthing are “it’s an alien, I told you, I knew it, aliens, oh my god you guys alien!” Maybe it’s not, though. It’s hard to tell, with Jade.

Collecting your papers and stuffing them between pages of the Grimoire, you scramble to your feet and nervously follow the nurse down the hallway. Your stomach plummets further as you see several cops crowded around the door. Oh, god. That guy really is an alien. The government was sent to hush you up and they’re going to send you to Washington and you’ll never come back and what if they kill you because you know the secret? Your arm, resting at your side, tightens around your books, and your nerves string higher than you think they ever have been before. As you come forward, the nurse whispers something to the two policemen (Okay, so there are only two cops in the hallway. So sue you for your hyperbole) and motions at the three of you before stepping out of the way. One of them, the female of the pair, takes a few steps forward and smiles at you in a pleasant way (which, of course, just makes you more nervous than you already were).

You can’t let her have the first word. If she does, it’ll be all over for you. Your brain isn’t exactly working here – not on the hour and a half of sleep it’s had in the past forty-eight hours – and you need some kind of advantage. You need extra time to think. Obviously, the best course of action in this case is to just start talking without thinking about the words. “Officer, I swear we didn’t mean to cause all this trouble, we-“

“Don’t worry, ma’am, you aren’t going to be held responsible for the actions of the patient.” She just talks over you, and your voice ends up dying off like a little kid trying to have an argument with their teacher when they clearly don’t know anything. “All we want is for you to come down to the station and make a statement, so we can try to identify this guy.”

You exchange nervous glances with your co-workers. The thing is, you really, really don’t want to go down to the station and make a statement, because you really don’t want them to identify that guy. But there’s no way you can tell her that. “Oh, yeah, of course. That’s perfectly reasonable. We’ll definitely come down and, uh, do that.” Jade is grinning from ear to ear. It makes you more nervous than it really should.

But that means she’s got a plan. So you go with it.

~!~

Your name is JADE HARLEY and you are a MASTER at bailing people out of jail.

This is probably to do with your YEARS OF EXPERIENCE on the matter. You were raised by your granddad, and although he was as sweet and kindly and loving as a granddad could be, he was also a CRAZY WWII VET and an even crazier OLD PERSON. He’d have FLASHBACKS and PUNCH RANDOM PEOPLE OUT ON THE STREET. This one time, when you two went to the beach, he took this random bikini babe to the ground and started screaming at her to “put up your fists, fish-Hitler, for tonight we duke to the DEATH”.

You are never going to the beach with your granddad again. Ever.

The point is, it took you maybe forty minutes to convince the police down at the station that this guy, JON DEERE OR WHATEVER, is actually your brother-in-law (twice removed), and that he’s been living with you and the Lalondes after a hard crack relapse, but that you’ll willingly up the ante on watching him to make sure he doesn’t find whatever substance he was taking to cause him have such a VIOLENT OUTBURST in the first place. And they said you’d get custody over him!

Get custody BACK, that is. HaHA.

Rose and her mom always sit in the front seat of the car, so you tuck into the back, the sleeping form of your “cousin” (or whatever) slumped against the window. He’s still wearing a hospital gown, which is KIND OF GROSS, but hey, your granddad has come back from jail worse, and you were hauling him into the back of the car alone then. What more annoys you is that the sun is coming up, which means it’s, what, six, seven AM? You have wasted your whole night on this stupid goddamn alien. Like, he’s pretty ripped, you guess, which is hot, but at the same time, you got like one hour of sleep. The novelty of finding an alien life form is a lot lamer and annoying when you’re tired and cranky and feel like having a toddler-fit.

You want coffee.

“I want coffee,” you say, and it comes out a lot whinier than you had intended, but Rose looks back at you and silently nods. The two of you share a moment of true sisterhood. It is truly a deep and meaningful experience. You consider gently and spiritually touching her shoulder, but you are interrupted by Mrs. Lalonde saying that you should really get the weird alien hobo some clothes before you pop in some caffine, especially if you intend to get him some too. More (less soulful) glances are exchanged. “What…clothes can we give him?” You ask. Your clothes definitely aren’t going to fit on this guy – he’s like six feet tall and built like a bear. Or a truck. Or a bear-truck.

Mrs. Lalonde clears her throat uneasily. “I mean, back in my room, I have some. Stuff that might fit him.” She shifts nervously, and Rose gives her a Look. You can just feel the capitalization of the L. It’s so incredibly unimpressed, you’re actually kind of impressed yourself – but not so much that you aren’t thoroughly spooked when the space junkie starts shifting around.

Man, you really need to get a name for this guy.

Rose passes the taser back to you, and you hold it in one hand – with the other, you grasp his shoulder firmly and give him a friendly shake. “Hey,” you say, a bit abrasively, “hey, hobo alien dude, what’s your name?”

He makes grumbly grunting noises for a minute (as the resident morning person who wakes everyone up, you are very familiar with these noises), then startles awake and fixes you with a deer-in-the-headlights stare. It’s actually kind of weird – his eyes are totally normal and blue, and his expressions are totally human. He blinks at you, and you pat his shoulder comfortingly. “You speak English? We’re cool, man, everything’s cool.”

He shakes his head. “No, no, I’m…I speak. I just…where am I?” His eyes dart around the car.

You give him a Look of your own. “You’re not gonna go crazy and attack us again, are you? Because, like, we totally kicked your ass last time, and we can do it again. Besides, we saved your life. You were just in a crater somewhere.” He blinks. You take a deep breath and relax. “You’re safe now. You are in the backseat of the Lalonde family jeep. No one is going to hurt you here.” You give him a reassuring grin. “We’ll drop you off wherever, but I’d like to hear a name first, dude!”

“Uh.” He blinks again. It’s one of those high-eyebrowed, startled blinks, which is probably why you keep noticing it. He’s doing that a lot. “John,” (You hear “I kneeeeew it” from the driver’s seat) he mumbles, then clears his throat. “Uh, I mean, I am John Egbert, son of the high King of Prospit, first heir and wielder of the Warhammer of Zillyhoo, the most powerful – and whimsical – weapon in all of Skaia.” He touches his chest like he’s checking for a heartbeat. You hear some snorting from the front seat, but ignore it and flash your main alien man a grin. A specialty Harley we’re-cool-now grin.

“Nice to meet you, John!” You were hoping more for Warlord Zod of Omitrax Five, but you’re not going to say that. Instead, you hold a hand out to shake. “Jade Harley, Dame of the Lalonde jeep – and R.V.! – wielder of a…Remington 1911, I guess, made in…Montreal?” You shrug and laugh.

“Zillywho, huh.” Rose sounds perfectly uninterested, which means she’s completely fascinated and probably formulating an idea in her head. “Well, that sounds perfectly alien and strange. Tell me, John, do they have coffee in Skaia?”


End file.
